A Brief History of the Palestine Israeli Conflict

Palestine sits upon the Mediterranean Sea between Egypt, Syria, and Arabia; the land has switched hands many times over the past few thousands of years. Being a holy land for all three Abrahamic religions has led to a brutal conflict between them since their formation. The current conflict in Palestine has been raging for about three quarters of a century, but before it can be addressed some history must be known. For four centuries the land had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire, and as it began to collapse in the late 19th century ethnic Jews worldwide started a semi secular nationalist movement called Zionism which called for a return to their homeland of Israel which was promised to them by g-d in the Torah. In the First World War the Ottomans were on the losing side, and in 1917, with the Zionist movement growing, the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Arthur Belfour declared that Britain backed the idea of establishing Palestine as a “national home for the Jewish people.”

At the end of the First World War Britain was gifted the newly formed Mandate for Palestine which in its creation carried Belfour’s promise. Not a state, not the sole national home like Zionists wanted, but a place where any Jews who wanted to could go without fear of the persecution that had hounded them for millennia. A few years later the revolt of the Arab people against the imperialist occupation of Great Britain began. Many innocents were killed on both sides, but Britain’s response was incredibly brutal leading to the death, maiming or exile of a tenth of the adult male population. In response The British attempted some reconciliation with the Arab community by creating policies to limit Jewish immigration and property purchase.

After the Second World War this limitation on immigration kept nearly a hundred thousand displaced Jews from coming into the country. After a series of uprisings by the Jews in Palestine, and general international disapproval on the continued immigration...